Essential Skills

NTA Essential Skills Course Overviews

Essential Skills

Leadership – Meeting the Needs of Employees and the Company

Effective front-line leadership is the key to organizational success. The balancing act that is required to meet organizational and employee needs requires skill, self-understanding, understanding others and a vision for the future of the participants work unit that aligns with company goals. Participants will learn to apply the basic principles of good supervision with enhanced communication skills.  This will result in an environment where employees work together more efficiently and more effectively increasing the company’s productivity and competitiveness.

Discovering Emotional Intelligence

Leading in an emotionally intelligent way involves influencing the emotions and actions of colleagues in a positive direction. Participants will leave with a stronger ability to model the behaviors of emotionally intelligence leaders. Each participant will create an Action Plan which identifies target areas and specific steps for further growth and development.

Critical Conversations – Engaging, Clear, Concise and Compelling

Organizations depend on supervisors and managers to handle critical people issues in a positive way.  As a leader, you are expected to be skillful at creating outcomes that benefit the organization and the people you supervise, even when people are angry, resentful and disapproving of decisions that are made or feedback that is unfavorable.   Fortunately, most critical conversations are relatively easy to have if they are well planned and involve good news and development opportunities. They are easy but just as critical as those involving poor performance, or bad news about pay, job assignments, and the need to take disciplinary action.  The key to success is to have all of these critical conversations frequently and in a timely manner.  Putting them off when the news is good or bad will lead to problems including low morale, employee turnover, and poor productivity.  

Conflict Management – How Everyone Can Win

This program takes a close look at the variety of typical responses used when an employee is faced with a conflict situation.  This program acknowledges conflict as inevitable and as something that can be managed.  If managed effectively, satisfactory conflict management can lead to new ideas and preserve and strengthen working relationships.

Leading High-Performance Teams

Great communicators and team players are made not born.  Valuable skills and techniques can be learned to increase a work team’s effectiveness in identifying and solving problems which in turn will increase productivity.  

Conducting Engaging Performance Appraisals

An effective performance appraisal process provides clear, measurable standards of performance, continuous feedback on job performance and a formal performance appraisal at least once a year. This program explores this “performance management” process and provides the skills necessary to effectively conduct a formal performance appraisal.

Internal Customer Service – Working Together for Business Success

Changing demographics and tough economic conditions have resulted in a work environment where resources are tighter and tempers are shorter.  Yet, the interdependency among workers to attain organizational goals has intensified. Participants will gain more insight and be motivated to generate a win-win mentality in their day-to-day dealings with each other.  They will learn the skills and demonstrate the behaviors to sustain alignment and accountability in the collective pursuit of the organization’s goals.

External Customer Service – Winning One Customer at a Time

Giving customers what they want is a business imperative.  Customers have more options than ever.  Customers are more demanding than ever.  Customers do not want GOOD service.  Customers want EXCEPTIONAL service. Participants will demonstrate the behaviors of a sincere service enthusiast.  They will develop the skills to respond to customer needs in a friendly, knowledgeable, and efficient manner.

Train-the Trainer – Achieving High Levels of Performance

This is a highly experiential program designed for any employee who has the responsibility for one-on-one training. The program highlights the knowledge and skills necessary to be an effective trainer. The participants will assess their skill level as a trainer and areas that need improvement.

Time Mastery

This Time Management program focuses on developing customized strategies for improving productivity and finding greater balance in your daily life. As pre-work participants will have an opportunity to complete the Time Mastery Profile® a unique tool that assesses your personal   skills in relationship to your job priorities.

Being an Effective Team Player

Great team players are made not born. Valuable skills and techniques can be learned to increase a work team’s effectiveness in identifying and solving problems which in turn will increase productivity.  Participants will recognize the value of developing effective communication skills in order to build a more cooperative work environment through teamwork.  Participants will practice the skills to be an effective team player resulting in fewer conflicts and improved relationships.  Participants will also be able participate in effective problem solving, and in increasing the efficiency of work processes, and in pursuing new opportunities in the work environment.

Problem Solving, Decision Making and Assuring the Success of Decisions

Problem solving meetings are often confusing, misdirected and disorganized. Some participants are trying to define the problem while others are offering solutions and still others are offering opinions as if they are facts.  Some are accepting abstract problem definitions while others are judging and criticizing.  Upon witnessing a typical problem-solving meeting, the need for an agreed upon problem solving and decision-making process couldn’t be clearer.